The Fader has published an interview with Instagram founder Kevin Systrom that reveals how Systrom first got into photography, and how the service’s now-ubiquitous filters came about:

[...] my teacher handed me this plastic Holga camera and said, “You’re going to use this and learn to deal with imperfection.” I remember developing the first roll and the feeling I got from the vignetting and the light leaks that came from the blurry plastic lens. That transformed the way I looked at photography—from trying to replicate reality into taking a scene and creating some kind of interpretation of its mood.

Instagram started as a mobile check-in app, but after creating his first filter (XProII), Systrom realized they could do more with the concept. He then began creating new looks and spending a couple hours at a time trying to mimic the look of different photos.

Oversaturated: Is Instagram’s Popularity Changing Photography? (via A Photo Editor)

Image credit: 2011.02.10 Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom by Gerard’s World

Apple’s upcoming iOS 5 will offer a number of welcome photography-related upgrades for iPhone shooters, but here’s one that will surely cause a love/hate response: filters. The following functions will be available to app developers once the OS is released:

CIAdditionCompositing, CIAffineTransform, CICheckerboardGenerator, CIColorBlendMode, CIColorBurnBlendMode, CIColorControls, CIColorCube, CIColorDodgeBlendMode, CIColorInvert,CIColorMatrix, CIColorMonochrome, CIConstantColorGenerator, CICrop, CIDarkenBlendMode, CIDifferenceBlendMode, CIExclusionBlendMode, CIExposureAdjust, CIFalseColor, CIGammaAdjust, CIGaussianGradient, CIHardLightBlendMode, CIHighlightShadowAdjust, CIHueAdjust, CIHueBlendMode, CILightenBlendMode, CILinearGradient, CILuminosityBlendMode,CIMaximumCompositing, CIMinimumCompositing, CIMultiplyBlendMode, CIMultiplyCompositing, CIOverlayBlendMode, CIRadialGradient, CISaturationBlendMode, CIScreenBlendMode,CISepiaTone, CISoftLightBlendMode, CISourceAtopCompositing, CISourceInCompositing, CISourceOutCompositing, CISourceOverCompositing, CIStraightenFilter, CIStripesGenerator,CITemperatureAndTint, CIToneCurve, CIVibrance, CIVignette, and CIWhitePointAdjust.

Looks like Apple is embracing the idea of vintage filters for iPhone photos and is making it extremely easy to make your own. What this probably means is that we’ll be seeing a huge explosion of bad filters very soon.

(via TechCrunch via PopPhoto)

Image credit: iPhone Filters by adamwilcox